I've obviously seen the advertising with steam now working properly on Ubuntu, but I've also heard from a few people that a lot of games still don't actually work. So I'm looking for a definitive answer from the users on the pros and cons.

What are people's views? This is basically the only thing stopping me changing to Ubuntu..

Just look up the games you need to have, if they are available to Ubuntu, witch if not don't. You van always use a dual boot, so you have both systems installed.
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AlvarJul 18 '13 at 21:55

Definitely want to avoid dual boot as much as possible. But yeah, that's an option.
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LiamJul 18 '13 at 21:58

1

It depends on what games you want to play. Some are available on Ubuntu while others may work with Wine. Could you clarify what games you play on Steam?
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papukaijaJul 18 '13 at 22:09

1

windows steam and linux steam are two different animals. windows steam works fine in wine given the -no-dwrite flag. linux steam still doesn't have most of the games available in windows steam.
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hbdgafJul 18 '13 at 22:18

Using linux Steam

You can use this page to get an idea of the number of games per platform (please note this may not be totally correct: DLC's, demos, etc should be counted as well). At this moment:

April 2014

PC (Windows): 2880 games

Mac: 781 games

Linux: 401 games

Original data (July 2013)

PC (Windows): 2046 games

Mac: 452 games

Linux: 131 games

If you have an idea of the games you want to play you can check if they are available or not. If not you are a lot more restricted on the choices you can make. Also it should take some (a lot?) time to Mac/Linux catch up with Windows. It really only depends on the creators of games.

Using win Steam on wine

As you are using the Windows Steam client, every game should be available to install. The real question is how well each game works, or if they work at all. You can check Wine Application DB how well each game works and tricks/tips.

Every game I tried with Wine worked, but with some glitches. I have never installed any from windows Steam, but installation should be as easy on Windows (you may have then to make some change to make it work with Wine).

Also as wine translates Windows API's you can expect a performance hit.